Ye Qiyan squinted slightly, sitting next to Donald. He opened a bottle of beer and handed it to Donald, wearing a curious smile as he asked,
“What exactly is this RUN Company you guys mentioned?”
As soon as he said this, Donald and the others all shot him puzzled looks.
Donald scratched his head.
“Brother Ye Qiyan, your question really throws me off. You’re the one who owns the train, so how could you possibly not know about RUN Company?”
“This train wasn’t bought by me.”
“...I see.”
Donald smiled bitterly and shook his head.
“I was just saying, you’re so young, how could you have gathered enough Train Coins to buy a whole train? And you don’t look like an adventurer either. Ah, being a noble is nice—you get what you want without fighting out there.”
Donald had already pictured the story: Ye Qiyan was some noble heir driving a train provided by his family to adventure on the borderlands.
Ye Qiyan gave an embarrassed smile to confirm Donald’s suspicions, then showed curiosity again and asked,
“So, what exactly is RUN Company? And what are these Train Coins? How do they relate to the train?”
Donald took a sip of beer, leaned on his huge cross, and pulled out a cloth bag from his pocket. From it, he took out something Ye Qiyan was very familiar with—
a Train Coin.
“RUN Company suddenly appeared on the continent over two hundred years ago. These people called Couriers brought a lot of incredible things. Back then, the countries on the continent wanted to buy those things but were told they could only trade using these mysterious coins.”
“These coins are hard to find and impossible to replicate. You can only get them from boxes in dangerous places or mysterious ruins.”
“One empire tried to seize those miraculous items by force, but overnight, the imperial capital of that empire was wiped off the map, as if it never existed...”
“Even top-tier adventurer squads like ours have only managed to collect a dozen or so coins over more than ten years.”
“We’re still three coins short of buying a train...”
Saying this, Donald looked enviously at Ye Qiyan’s train again, lamenting the injustice of fate.
Ye Qiyan stroked his chin lightly.
RUN Company appeared more than two centuries ago.
But Shaya said she hadn’t heard of RUN Company fifteen years ago.
So, the time on the platform and the time in the wilderness must not be synchronized?
Also... the boxes he mentioned where you get Train Coins—those must be treasure chests, right? But why only coins inside?
“Are there only these coins in the boxes? Nothing else?”
Donald looked at him in confusion.
“Of course, what else could there be?”
Ye Qiyan didn’t ask further.
“So, after getting the coins, how do you contact RUN Company?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions, kid. Fine, in exchange for these beers...”
Having gotten his answer, he used the excuse of being drunk and returned to the train.
Sitting in his chair, he fell into thought.
“Are treasure chests only openable by the Train Conductor to get anything besides Train Coins? Or is all this just part of Donald’s setup at this stop?”
Ye Qiyan was increasingly confused about these platforms.
Many times, the platform’s background setting showed a complete world, but sometimes, a platform was just a fixed space surrounded by endless darkness and void.
So, is the world inside the platform really real?
“Ugh... Why am I thinking about this? What does it have to do with me? Just focus on myself.”
Ye Qiyan shook his head, tossing those wild thoughts aside.
He took out the few Train Coins he had left and silently recited the usage method Donald told him.
“Summon RUN Company Courier to proceed with purchase.”
No response.
Expected.
RUN Company’s clients seemed not to be Train Conductors like him, but the natives inside the platform.
“Collecting Train Coins through the platform’s natives, huh? Then why refuse to trade with the Train Conductor? RUN Company... seems to be hiding itself?”
After a while, the Goblin vanguard arrived.
These green-skinned monsters wore standard leather armor and wielded wooden spears. Compared to the low-level goblins seen at first, these were clearly elite.
Ye Qiyan didn’t intervene. He even shut down the Sentry, pretending to have used up a lot of bullets in the first wave.
After hearing the news, Donald and his team looked at him with more disdain.
They completely regarded him as a rich kid who went out adventuring. Apart from the train and the Sentry onboard, he had no real ability.
“So this is magic? Pretty cool, too bad I can’t learn it.”
Inside the train, looking through the window, Ye Qiyan munched on sunflower seeds bought from Zhao Lin and watched the squad fight.
“No wonder the cross is so big—it’s for swinging people? Violent Cleric, huh? Ew, smashed into meat paste directly.”
The battle lasted a long time. Eventually, with the squad members injured, they defeated the vanguard of over a hundred elite goblins.
Though no one died, everyone was wounded and could only slowly recover thanks to Donald’s healing.
But the goblins obviously wouldn’t give them that time.
Another batch of elite goblins climbed over the hill and charged immediately.
The scouts ahead brought bad news: the main force of the goblin legion was only ten minutes away from this village.
But the squad’s combat power was hard to accept.
The squad’s mage had even been gutted by an elite goblin assassin and nearly died.
After the fight, Donald was panting heavily. He glanced at the pale-faced mage beside him and gritted his teeth.
“We can’t wait any longer. Open the barrier quickly! If this continues, before the goblin main force arrives, we’ll be ambushed and killed by these assassins.”
Donald bit his lip and calculated the time.
“Open the barrier! Drive out those lowly goblins!”
A translucent light dome, like an upside-down bowl, covered the village.
Outside the dome, the goblins were blocked.
They pounded desperately but couldn’t shake the light barrier even an inch.
Donald was right—this thing could indeed block attacks from ordinary goblins.
But what if what’s coming isn’t ordinary goblins?
Lightning flashed.
In the sky, a spear wrapped in thunder struck the barrier at incredible speed.
Cracks began spreading from its tip.
“Crack, crack!”
The barrier shattered.
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